


On A Prayer

by Elenothar



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Brandt is a Guardian Angel, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Wings, he also swears a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:32:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4958995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenothar/pseuds/Elenothar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waking up with great big wings on his back isn't exactly what Will expected from dying. As it turns out, life after death is only helpful when you know what to do with it. And then there's Ethan, who always complicates things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On A Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://ghotocol-kink.livejournal.com/1494.html?thread=704726#t704726) kinkeme post, asking for Angel Brandt.
> 
> Have some more wingfic, because apparently that's my thing now. I've been editing this piece for months now, and I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with the end result still, but I figured it's not going to get any better at this point. Hope you enjoy!

-

Somehow Will never expected dying to be quite so _final_. Or quite so painless, come to think of it. He watches more dark red blood seep through his fingers, joining the pool of liquid that’s soaking his suit and hair, and feels oddly detached. If anyone had asked him in that moment, he couldn’t have sworn that this is, in fact, his own body bleeding out in a third-rate hotel in the middle of nowhere Croatia, surrounded by the dead bodies of an entire Serbian hit squad and the mutilated body of the woman he’d failed to protect.

Well, at least the mistake wouldn’t bother him for much longer. He almost wants to giggle. And isn’t it funny that most languages he speaks have an equivalent phrase for _gallows humour_? Galgenhumor, umorismo macabro, mráčnyj júmor – he knows he should know more, but his mind is starting to slip. Or at least he’s pretty sure the ceiling shouldn’t be tinged black and swimming in front of his eyes.

Hurried footsteps sound, unnaturally loud in the still air that’s only disturbed by his laboured breath, and he thinks he hears a familiar voice, but the words don’t reach through the fog in his mind.

William Brandt is dead by the time the footsteps reach him and he will never see the terrible regret that passes over Ethan Hunt’s face, nor feel calloused hands touch his brow as gentle fingers close his eyes.

-

The next thing Will is aware of, is _awareness_ , closely followed by surprise at said awareness. He’s pretty sure he’s dead, and yet he doesn’t feel dead at all. There’re his limbs, attached in all the right places, his head seems to be working fine, and he can hear the wind rustling in trees, smells flowers and recent rain.

He opens his eyes.

There are indeed trees. He’s staring right at one in fact, back in the dirt and wind flowing past his nose. He keeps still for long moments, breathing in the air and feeling blades of grass beneath his fingertips because this is what _living_ feels likeand he never thought he’d experience any of this ever again. He only moves when a small white butterfly decides he makes for a good perch.

Upright on two legs that feel entirely normal, it takes Will a moment to realise that he’s standing in a graveyard. There’s a group of sombre, black-clad people not far from him, and he recognises – his thoughts stutter to a halt. He’s at a funeral. At his _own_ funeral.

 _This is surprisingly fucked up._ He stares at the small congregation of people, none of which are looking in his direction or paying any kind of attention to him.

An itch starts between his shoulder blades and he raises an absent-minded hand to scratch at it, only to stop short when his fingers meet resistance on the way. Will twitches in surprise –

and finds himself with a face full of feathers. He stares at the pure white, downy things for a moment, his mind worryingly blank, then, experimentally, twitches his left shoulder again. The feathers move. Slowly he turns his head, following the line of the – _wing? How can it be a wing?_ – until he’s craning his neck over his own shoulder to see the spot where the wing connects to his flesh.

Fuck.

He’d thought waking up after death feeling no different was weird but suddenly finding himself with a pair of wings that feel so natural he hadn’t even _noticed_ them is an entirely different ballgame of weird. Also, they don’t appear to be corporeal because he’s just moved the right wingtip through the nearest tree trunk.

A few meters away, the urn holding his ashes is being buried beneath a simple tombstone. Later Will will be curious enough to look at it and find a laugh somewhere deep inside his chest at the inscription _William Brandt – Protector_. Now he sees an even more non-descript shadow lurking at the edge of the proceedings, and wonders why Ethan Hunt came to the funeral of the man he already saw die.

Will swallows past a throat dry as sandpaper and finds himself wishing that he was anywhere else than here, watching the few people he ever cared about (and Ethan Hunt) lay him to rest. He closes his eyes, the world blurs, and once the sickening sense of disorientation fades, he’s standing in a green meadow he remembers from his childhood, where he always came to hide when the world became too much to handle.

Will hardly even blinks. After the day he’s had, sudden teleportation doesn’t even make the top of the list of weird things.

A gust of wind catches under the feathers he still has trouble remembering are attached to him. It creates no more than the tiniest updraft, but it sets every instinct he didn’t know he had screaming to beat his wings and rise into the air. For a second he teeters in indecision, then his body takes over. Powerful wings shudder, and tries not to throw up as the ground fades below him, taking with it every semblance of normality he’s managed. Soon even the urge for normality recedes because, because –

Flying is _easy_. Flying feels true in the same way that a gun fits in his hands or his muscles snap into a perfect kick to the kneecap. Some moments, up in the endless blue, he wishes it didn’t, wishes that it felt as confusing as he thinks it should be, but his minds hardly seems to listen to him anymore.

It takes him three days to get used to the wind blasting through his air, the weightlessness of flying and the freedom of the clouds.

On the third day he discovers the pale thread in his mind. The thread that when followed, leads toAgent Ethan Hunt, and doesn’t move again for days. For a time, his existence shrinks down to the intangible, invisible bond that tethers him to a man he doesn’t know, for reasons no one’s told him, with no instruction what to do. In that time, he discovers three things: the first is that while his body feels the cold, and hunger and thirst, and the need for sleep, not obeying any of these urges doesn’t harm him anymore, beyond the discomfort of the experience. The second is anger; Will has never held with letting his emotions rule him, has always been a fairly placid kind of guy in general, but for a few days out in the cold the fire of his anger at the world, at Ethan Hunt and at himself for somehow having gotten into this situation is enough to keep him warm. The third is helplessness; he may rile at his fate and the events that brought him to this point, but there doesn’t appear to be a single fucking thing he can do about it.

“What the fuck am I supposed to be, a fucking guardian angel?” he mutters angrily, scaring a few pigeons into flight. He discovered early on that, apparently, animals of all shapes and kinds have no problem seeing and hearing him.

His next thought is that if he was, he probably shouldn’t be swearing like a trucker, immediately followed by a bad-tempered ‘and why the fuck should I care?’. He is still William Brandt, even dead and whatever else he’s on top of that now, and William Brandt currently feels like swearing a whole lot more.

And William Brandt is not going to sit around any longer waiting for more shit to happen to him.

-

“I may be  in charge of the Impossible Mission Force,” the Secretary says slowly, “but some things are more impossible than others and this _definitely_ counts.”

Will snorts. “You’re telling _me_.”

“Agent Hunt saw you die.” The Secretary is still staring at him.

“I did die,” Will says truthfully, and his wings rustle in agreement. “Can you see them?” Will asks, half out of curiosity and half because he isn’t quite convinced that the wings really exist himself.

“See what?”

That would be a no then. Considering that Will estimates his wingspan to be close to fifteen foot, they’re not exactly easy to miss. About to give up on anyone in the real world ever recognising what he really looks like now, he frowns as an idea strikes him. It doesn’t sound safe exactly, but then again, what does he have to lose at this stage?

He takes a deep breath and stops thinking _Will_ -thoughts.

He _feels_ the energy moving beneath his skin, warmth uncoiling and even beneath closed eyelids he can tell that he’s now emitting a white glow. At the Secretary’s shocked gasp he opens his eyes again, and they too shine with a blue fire.

“What about now?” he asks, and even his voice is different. A little deeper perhaps, and echoing oddly in the stillness. There’s power to this voice, he suddenly knows – the knowledge just sits there in his brain as if it had always been there – power enough to make anyone do his bidding should he choose to command them. It’s that thought, that entirely un-Will-like thought that shocks him back into himself. The glow immediately lessens, and while he can still feel the wings rustling on his back, feathers whispering of promises he doesn’t want to hear, Will would be prepared to bet that they’ve gone invisible to human eyes again.

The Secretary’s face is bone white, and he keeps blinking to banish the picture his eyes insist on sending to his brain.

“Ah,” he says, some colour returning now that Will presumably has stopped lighting up like a beacon. “Those, yes.”

The man’s voice is almost back to normal, and Will’s respect for him ratchets up another few notches. It takes some balls, to witness an impossibility and carry on with something approaching normality, as opposed to, say, acting like a gibbering mess.

“I appear to be… linked to Agent Hunt,” Will says, after a moment’s hesitation.

Even in this situation, some measure of calculation enters the Secretary’s gaze. “Is that so,” he mutters, more to himself than Will. “What’s Agent Hunt doing right now?”

Will suffocates the sigh before it can pass his lips. The kind of instant teleportation he can now do is useful as hell, and it doesn’t technically _hurt_ , but he feels human enough, still, to be somewhat freaked out by the entire thing. It’s simply creepy to fade out of one place and fade in again at another without any thought to distance or physical impossibility. Or, for that matter, that he could end up in a stone wall. He isn’t even sure if he _can_ get killed again or not. There’s so much he doesn’t know about his current existence and the lack is close to painful for someone who’s spent much of his life relying on solid intel and numbers.

Still, if the Secretary is to believe and hopefully help him, he’ll need some sort of proof, so Will closes his eyes, concentrates, and opens them again in a dark cellblock in Moscow. Hunt is directly in his line of sight, lying on his hard mattress while staring at the wall and looking bored out of his mind. In other words, in exactly the same position as the last three times Will has looked in on him.

He rematerializes in the Secretary’s office in DC, noting the widening of eyes that even that old veteran can’t quite conceal.

“Hunt is currently lying on his bed, while staring at the ceiling and ignoring his, admittedly annoying, cell mate.”

“What number cell is he in?”

“91,” Will replies promptly.

The Secretary looks like he wants very much to pinch himself somewhere sensitive to make sure he’s not experiencing some exceedingly outlandish dream while trying not to look like someone who wants to pinch themselves somewhere sensitive to make sure they’re not experiencing some exceedingly outlandish dream.

“All right,” he says slowly, “say I believe you, and I admit that some of your arguments are quite convincing” – his gaze flickers to the space occupied by Will’s wings – “Given all that, what do you want from _me_?”

“I don’t want to be bored out of my mind watching Ethan Hunt languish in a Russian prison,” Will says frankly. “I thought I could make myself useful here instead.”

To his credit, the Secretary’s sharp gaze never wavers, despite the surreal situation he’s found himself in. “Usually service ends with death.”

Will shrugs. “Well, I’m still around and it’s not like I know to do anything else.”

The Secretary is clearly still a little dubious, but obviously makes an effort not to look a gift… angel in the mouth.

“I can get you an analyst position here at HQ,” he offers after some thought. “Our Chief Analyst is due to retire in a month. You can succeed her and that way you’ll be under my direct supervision and able to move about a little more freely.”

“I have no analyst training,” Will points out cautiously.

The Secretary’s lips quirk wryly. “You have the capability, Agent Brandt, I’ve seen your test forms. Frankly, it’s a bit of a mystery how you ended up in the field in the first place, with a mind like yours.”

Will thinks he should probably feel complimented, but he’s only uncomfortable. “It suited me better.”

“No,” the Secretary says, a tired old man for only a moment, “it got you killed.”

Will gazes at him steadily. He’s met the man who’s led the IMF for close to a decade several times, but never before has he consciously realised what a burden that must be. It takes a certain kind of fortitude to remain behind the scenes and attend every funeral – one that Will knows he himself certainly doesn’t have.

“I’ll take the job,” he murmurs. “As long as you understand that my first duty appears to be to Ethan Hunt, and that I might – well, I might disappear at any moment when someone or something somewhere has decided my job is done and I should really get back to being dead.”

“Understood.”

The Secretary hesitates, then asks, “You’ll still be looking after Hunt? The man is – ”

“ – the best,” Will finishes for him, though any of ‘important’, ‘valuable’, and ‘a total nutjob’ would also have been accurate. “Yes, I will. To the best of my abilities.”

The Secretary nods and leans back in his chair, and for the first time his eyes are wondering. “Then go redefine impossible some more, Analyst Brandt.”

Will leaves him to it.

-

Five covert visits and as many days later, Hunt still looks bored enough to give children’s TV a try and Will’s starting to feel bad for him. There isn’t much he can do about it, really, but the next time he pops in to see Hunt, he takes a small black bouncing ball in the hopes that it’ll alleviate a fraction of the tedium.

He also hides, invisible on the other side of the door, to watch Hunt finding it because he’s… curious. Will knows almost nothing about Ethan Hunt – well, he knows everything that’s in his file and even his most classified mission reports, which technically is quite a lot, but he hasn’t observed the man for any length of time, nor does he know any of those many inconsequential little details that make up his character when _not_ on a mission. So, yes, he wants to see his reaction to Will’s little gift.

It only takes Hunt a minute after re-entering his cell to find the little ball, placed strategically on his pillow as it is. (All right, so Will could’ve been more subtle. Sue him.) He inspects it carefully, a frown creasing his forehead. Though there’s suspicion on his face – items randomly appearing in a cell are somewhat suspicious, admittedly – Will is impressed by the way his body language remains carefully relaxed. After a moment, Hunt picks up the bouncing ball and lobs it at the wall. It returns perfectly to his hand.

Will lingers another few minutes, smiling at the constant quiet _thud_ of the ball hitting various surfaces.

-

Will spends at least an hour every day wishing his new condition came with some sort of manual. Some days, the number is a _lot_ higher.

He’s sitting peacefully at his desk in HQ, scrolling through the latest report on the cooperation with the CIA (problematic), when a strange tingle goes down his spine and without further warning the room blurs around him. The world reshapes into the now familiar drab surroundings of Hunt’s prison, unchanged except for the wall of noise that crashes over him as soon as his ears stop refusing to function.

You know death is getting to you when your reaction to materialising in the middle of a fistfight is to raise an eyebrow while surveying the hubbub. As he has half expected, Hunt is smack-dab in the middle of it all, trading punches with a hulking guy who looks like he belongs to some kind of Russian mob. He doesn’t really look like he needs any help, but Will figures he got pulled in for a reason so he sticks out his foot and trips up one of the guys trying to charge into the fray. The man goes down in a confused flail of limbs, tangling another guy’s legs in his descent, and Will, perhaps, feels a little too smug.

He’s slowed down another five people, while Hunt’s been busy beating up another three by the time the prison guards finally charge in and start breaking up the fight. Despite Will’s fairly minimal involvement, Hunt’s got nothing but a few bruises to show for his involvement, and when Will wills himself back to HQ in DC, his body follows without issue.

The computer screen in front of him is still displaying the CIA report, but he’s too busy thinking over the implications of this new development to concentrate on it. He supposes it only makes sense to be pulled to Hunt whenever he’s in trouble, but it could be damn inconvenient – say, if he’s in an important meeting or some such when he disappears.

Suddenly feeling bleak, he wonders whether there’s even anything about himself that he still truly controls.

-

Even in the darkness of the car Ethan Hunt looks like he’s just crawled out of prison, white-faced and tired. That strange new protective instinct is twitching uneasily in Will’s gut, but so far there’s not really been anything Hunt needed his help with after Will shielded him from the explosion as much as he could.

Hunt is staring, first at Will’s face, then at a point to the right of Will’s face, blinking several times, and then at Will’s face again.

“What?” he manages.

Will exchanges an almost mischievous look with the Secretary. “I think we can add him to the very short list of people who recognise me,” Will murmurs.

“Ah yes, that does appear to be the case,” the Secretary agrees, equally deadpan and – Will would hazard the guess – equally amused to see the usually unflappable Ethan Hunt lost for words.

“Are either of you two going to acknowledge the fact that there’s a dead man in this car at any point?” Ethan demands. “William Brandt is _dead_. I _saw_ him die with my own eyes, and unless he’s got an identical twin I’m sitting right across from a corpse who looks suspiciously alive and less decomposed than should be possible.”

“Hmm, yes,” the Secretary murmurs, then takes pity on the slightly manic expression on Hunt’s face. “That is indeed William Brandt, and yes, he’s dead though as you can see not quite like you imagined. We don’t have time to go into the details right now, though I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually.”

All playfulness is gone from his expression. “I’ve been ordered to bring you back to Washington, where they’ll brand you a terrorist.”

Will lets the words wash over him, paying attention to Hunt instead. He already knows what the Secretary is going to say after all, and his role is no bigger than to put in a token protest when the Secretary suggests Hunt should knock them both out.

The USB drive has just switched hands when a tingling sense of danger runs down his spine. _So I have a spidey-sense now_ , he has time to think, amused despite himself, and then the car is veering, falling.

(If he’s silently wished a few times to see Ethan Hunt in action from up close, he’s certainly satisfied now.)

-

The train compartment is too small for four people to be comfortable and there’s an itch beneath Will’s skin that’s amplified by the way everyone else keeps staring at him. Agent Carter’s gaze is mostly suspicious, Agent Dunn’s curious and Hunt’s – well, who the hell knows.

Silence has fallen after the initial briefing, each of them pondering the threat of nuclear war in their private little worlds. Will can’t say that the idea appeals and the pinched looks on everyone else’s faces suggest they are of similar minds.

It’s Will’s stomach rumbling that breaks the silence, and only years of training stop him from blushing outright. He doesn’t even need to eat now, technically, and still his body sometimes likes to remind him that much of it is still human.

For a moment everyone else looks at him, Carter and Hunt sporting almost identical raised eyebrows, then Dunn snorts and gets up.

“Right, I’m guessing you haven’t had dinner yet and since Ethan was with you I’m sure he hasn’t either.”

He rummages around in one of the many mystery drawers, then turns back, flourishing two MREs.

“High cuisine,” Hunt drawls, but he too must be hungry for he reaches for one of the packs immediately.

“Does it feel weird to anyone else that the world could end in like, two days, and we’re watching Ethan eat?” Dunn asks after a moment of them doing exactly that.

The question spurs Will into action, taking first cautious bites of his own meal.

Hunt shrugs around a mouthful of whatever mush he’s currently ingesting. “Can’t save the world without proper sustenance.”

“I would hardly call this _proper_ sustenance,” Will mutters, then freezes. Dammit, he’d meant to keep his head down and his mouth _shut_.

But Hunt’s lips are twitching up and even Carter looks mildly amused, so maybe this isn’t so bad after all.

“Sustenance then,” Hunt says, something unaccountably warm in his voice.

At a loss of what else to do, Will ducks his head and continues to eat.

Dunn, however, doesn’t seem done with the topic. “Is _no one_ else freaking out about the impending apocalypse?”

Carter shrugs philosophically, Hunt doesn’t react at all unless shovelling food with even more intensity counts as reacting, and Will –

“We’re at a crossroad in time.”

The words came out of his mouth, but he’s damned if he knows where they actually came from because he sure as hell didn’t intend to utter them.

Great, now everyone’s staring at him again.

“Never mind that,” he mutters. “Read a bit too much poetry when I was little.”

Hunt raises an eloquent eyebrow – _that’s the best you can come up with?_ – and Will glares back at him with equal eloquence – _you shut up or you’ll make it worse_. Maybe his new teammates will be satisfied with thinking he’s just a bit of a nutter, it’s not like those are hard to come by in their line of work.

It does make him wonder how much Hunt actually knows, beyond Will’s deceased status. For now the impending crisis has delayed any interrogation, but he doubts Hunt is going to let him get away with it for much longer. The sharpness in the other’s expression alone would be enough to make him certain – having read the Agent’s file only backs up what he has observed himself: Ethan Hunt is not a man who will turn a blind eye to _anything_ that might affect him.

The question is rather what will happen to Will in the aftermath.

-

When Ethan misses the window and starts falling down the Burj Khalifa, Will jumps after him without a second thought. Later he will wonder whether it’s because of the way he’s linked to Ethan, or if it’s just _him_. Either option scares him. But right now, he is free-falling down the tallest building in the world, wings tucked close to his body to avoid air drag, and he isn’t thinking about the fact that he doesn’t even know whether his wings are strong enough to carry another person, or that after this Ethan will know what he is because he can cover up many things but flight isn’t exactly one of them – no, the only thought in his mind is _safe Ethan_.

Ethan, whether out of some sense of precognition or out of sheer habit, is falling spread-eagled, fanned arms and legs slowing down his descent enough for Will to reach him. Thinking fast – and suddenly wishing he’d performed some experiments before because how again does one carry another grown man without impeding the imminent wingbeats that will hopefully save them from an extremely messy end on the sidewalk? – Will lets himself fall right on top of Ethan, arms going around the other’s chest right under his armpits, and even as they start spinning in the air from, he links his hands and pulls up with all his might.

For a long, terrifying moment his wings beat against the air and they’re still falling, but then, his shoulders screaming with the effort, frantic wing-flaps halt their screaming descent a few stories above ground level. Will doesn’t even want to know what kind of picture they’re making for whoever happens to glance up at the moment. With another grunt of effort – and if he hadn’t been quite sure before whether this body has hard limits, he certainly is now – Will angles his wings to catch a lucky updraft that finally relieves some of the pressure on his shoulder-blades and sends them soaring upwards. It's nowhere near as effortless as flying alone, but at least they _are_ gaining in altitude.

Dimly, Will is aware of Ethan’s whooping – the _maniac_ – but most of his concentration is taken up with finding the opening to their suite to finally be able to stop flapping about in clear sight.

Then he notices that their impromptu window isn’t actually large enough to land through with his wings outstretched and experiences a moment of bloody panic in the face of imminent _splat_ before he remembers that his wings tend to be incorporeal unless he really focusses, and by the time his frazzled mind has reached that conclusion he’s already through the gap, burden in tow.

They land in a slightly undignified tumble of limbs and the floor isn’t quite as welcoming as his new bruises would’ve liked, but Will doesn’t care because he’s alive – well, for a certain value of alive, um, not deader? – and there’s firm ground under him and, oh yeah, Ethan’s alive too. He’s never before been this glad about reality being so out of whack around him these days. Also the laws’ of physics complete failure to behave as they should.

Somewhere under his splayed leg Ethan’s still giggling, sounding more than a little punch-drunk. Will’s nerves twitch, body still running high on adrenaline, when Jane hovers over them both.

“Uh, guys, I don’t know what just happened, but Wistrom is about to enter the elevator,” she says and Will swallows back the urge to laugh madly. Of course, the mission. Something as insignificant as nearly having two of four team members die falling from the tallest building in the world couldn’t get in the way of completing _the_ _mission_. He’s somewhat envious of the speed with which Ethan pulls himself together. It takes all of a second for their fearless leader to be all business again, dragging Will along in his wake.

-

The plane hums all around them and Will, more conscious of sheer height than he ever was before, ignores just how much he wishes he was flying instead of _being_ _flown_. Or maybe he’s just trying to distract himself from how uncomfortable Ethan’s recurrent staring has become. Will is well aware that there’s going to be a Talk in his near future – one that he doesn’t particularly want to have, but after his stunt at the Burj there’s just no way Ethan is going to turn a blind eye to the situation any longer, extremely important mission or not.

For once he wouldn’t have minded being wrong, but the moment Jane followed Benji into a well-deserved snooze, Ethan motions him into the surprisingly luxurious airplane lavatory. It’s still a bit of a tight fit and not awkward _at all_ because Ethan’s face is now only a few centimetres from his own and it’s all Will can do not to… notice things. Like how Ethan’s blue eyes are speckled with grey on a closer look, and his nose really is just the tiniest bit crooked.

With a mental groan Will tears his gaze away and fixes it to the fake wood panelling behind Ethan’s head instead. At least the door is a reassuringly solid wall between him and the other two members of their hotchpotch team because he doesn’t even want to imagine having this talk with those two on top of Ethan any time soon.

Will waits for Ethan to start speaking, even as his fight or flight response gets stronger and stronger and it takes physical effort to stop himself from phasing somewhere else just to escape the almost suffocating proximity to Ethan. Maybe he should’ve indulged his little spark of rebellion when he’d nearly not risen to follow Ethan into this watercloset – except that then this conversation would’ve happened with Benji and Jane listening in because Ethan was sure as hell not going to drop it, stubborn ass that he is.

“I think you owe me an explanation,” Ethan finally says, voice measured. Will can tell that he’s still looking at Will’s face rather than do the polite thing and grace the wall with his focus as well.

It takes a moment for the anger to hit, and then it’s all Will can do not to let the noise that’s trying to crawl out of his throat escape his mouth. “I don’t owe you _anything_ ,” he whispers furiously, and _fucking hell_ he hadn’t even realised just how much of a sore point this is. A distant part of his brain is horrified at this oversight, at his behaviour, but his lips keep moving. “I already gave you my life. And whatever the hell this is too.”

Somewhere in the middle of that his eyes returned to Ethan’s face, and from this distance he really couldn’t have missed the slight flinch that passes over the other’s features, nor the hint of guilt crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“Brandt,” Ethan says, and there’s something broken in the word that stops Will short. “William,” Ethan tries again, “I _am_ sorry. No one was ever supposed to die.”

The corner of Will’s lip curls up. “Except for the Serbian hit squad, you mean.”

Ethan waves that away. “Waste not, want not.” A distracted hand pushes through his gleaming black hair. “Look, I thought I had it all figured out. I paid the men not to hurt anyone on your team, but when you returned early – ”

“They panicked,” Will says flatly. “Yes, I get that.”

Ethan’s gaze is frank now, almost vulnerable in a way that Will has never seen before. “You paid the prize for Julia being safe, and I’m sorry for that. I wish you hadn’t sensed something was wrong, though it says much of your skills as an agent that you did, but what’s past is past and I can’t change it. Can you work with that?”

Will hears the unspoken _can you work with me_ , and perhaps even the, _can you forgive me_ , and he takes a deep breath.

“Yes, Ethan. Yes, I can,” he says, and means it. For all his earlier anger, he _has_ had months to come to terms with his death, and anyway, so far the afterlife isn’t turning out too bad either. He’s also experienced enough in the game to realise that it’s not truly Ethan’s fault, though he was the reason for Will’s assignment – no one can calculate all the potential ways an op can go wrong. Will should know, he’s spent his entire life trying.

“Good,” Ethan murmurs, any relief he feels wiped from his expression as quickly as it arrived. “Then you must understand that I have to know what’s going on with you, if not for myself at the very least for this mission and this team.”

Will doesn’t bother hiding his wariness. “Yes, I figured that.”

Ethan waits for him to say more, and when Will doesn’t oblige, prompts, “You _did_ die then? In Croatia? I’ve never been one to doubt my own eyes, but you look very much… alive.”

“I did die,” Will confirms, lips twitching wryly. “As far as I can tell anyway. After bleeding out in the hotel room, I lost a bit of time. The next thing I remember is watching my own funeral. Wouldn’t recommend it, it’s creepy as hell.”

That startles a snort from Ethan, though the other’s focus never wavers.

“It took me a while to make any kind of sense of what was going on with me, but… well, it’s easier to show you.” Will shoots Ethan a stern look. “Please don’t freak out, a scuffle in here would get uncomfortable _really_ quickly.”

Ethan nods, eyes wary, and Will can tell that all his muscles are clenched in instinctual preparation for action, but he lets it slide. If he starts harping on little details now his own nerves are going to beat the currently curiously furious desire to have Ethan _know_. For Ethan to see him as he is.

Okay, even in his head that sounded a little bit pathetic, so Will turns his concentration to making his wings, and then, only for a moment, his glow visible.

Ethan makes a noise, somewhere between a gasp and a sigh, and of all the scenarios that had tumbled through Will’s mind, none included an honestly appreciative gaze with the tiniest inkling of awe lurking in the way Ethan’s eyes follow the arch of his wings.

“That is – _incredible_ ,” he breathes, and Will has a hard time not staring at him incredulously.

“You’re taking this really well, considering,” Will points out somewhat suspiciously.

Ethan tears his gaze from where it’d lingered on rustling feathers. “I’d heard rumours,” he says. “Nothing definite, but there are tales… And I already knew you were dead.” He shakes his head. “I _thought_ I’d seen wings in the Secretary’s car, but then my mind insisted that was impossible and they disappeared.”

Will rubs the back of his neck, avoiding the other’s gaze. “Don’t you think it’s a bit, I don’t know, freaky?”

“That’s entirely the wrong word for it,” Ethan says sharply, the same fierceness with which he’d comforted Jane and reassured Benji colouring his immediate response. “It’s unusual, yes, but there’s nothing ‘freaky’ about it.”

“You haven’t heard the whole of it yet,” Will says darkly, but Ethan’s expression doesn’t waver.

“Then tell me.”

“Somehow, and don’t ask me how or why because I have no fucking clue, you’re the reason I’m like this.” He points at his wings. “I’m connected to you somehow. I always know where you are and my main task seems to be to stop you from going splat on the sidewalk or getting shot or whatever else fool method you can invent to get yourself killed.”

Ethan’s eyebrows twitch upwards. “Like a Guardian Angel?”

Will grimaces. “I suppose, though I maintain that just sounds weird.”

Ethan only shrugs, smirk evaporating into an oddly guarded look. “And you’re certain that you’re supposed to be guarding me?”

“Let me put it this way,” Will snaps, not bothering to hide his testiness. “You could be halfway across the world right now and it would only take me a second to appear next to you. That certainly doesn’t happen with anyone else.”

Ethan crosses his arms over his chest, matching Will in stubbornness. “Then where’ve you been since the funeral? I didn’t see you before Moscow.”

Will glares right back. “I popped in from time to time. Believe me, you sitting around in prison all day was boring as fuck.”

“Is that why you went to the Secretary?”

Will nods, wondering whether he really just heard a hint of jealousy in Ethan’s voice. “He gave me a job as an analyst. That way I could at least be useful while sitting around on my ass waiting for you to get into trouble.”

There’s definitely a glimmer of amusement visible in Ethan’s dark eyes now. “I’m sure I didn’t make you wait too long on that count.”

“Nothing you really needed any assistance with, till Dubai.” Will lets himself smile back helplessly.

Ethan’s features sharpen. “Why _did_ you wait so long to reveal yourself? You needn’t have played the analyst.”

 “I _am_ an analyst, as much as I am a field agent,” Will says pointedly, bristling, as much at the tone as the content of Ethan’s words.  “More than a decent one too. And really, Ethan, imagine you were in my shoes. Would you have been in a hurry to tell everyone that you’re some kind of guardian angel thing when you can pass as a normal human?”

It might be regret that passes over Ethan’s expression. “All right,” he says quietly. “All right, that was your call.” He hesitates. “What about Benji and Jane?”

“What about them?” Will passes a weary hand over his face. “I’ll have to tell them eventually but right now is _not_ the best time. We have two hours till we land in Mumbai and less than a day to avert nuclear disaster.”

“Fair enough,” Ethan says after a moment. “But if we are to remain a team you’ll have to tell them after.”

Without waiting– or leaving the time –  for a reply, Ethan opens the door and squeezes past Will, who is far too busy with the words ‘remain a team’ running amok in his head to stop him anyway.

Ethan couldn’t possibly mean -? He’s _dead_ for fuck’s sake! But Ethan Hunt never says things he doesn’t mean; Will has figured that much out by now. The other man considers fake sympathy to be a waste of time and energy.

Slowly, hope unfurls beneath his breastbone.

-

They save the world. It’s the second-most strangest thing that’s ever happened to Will, right after dying and waking up with a great big pair of wings.

By the time they meet again on the pier in Seattle, no amount of denial can obscure the fact that he’s really going to have to tell Jane and Benji what’s going on because if nothing else, they deserve to know. The way Ethan keeps throwing him meaningful looks as they sip their beers really doesn’t help either.

“So, I have something to tell you guys,” he finally says, after Benji has finished a hand-wavey tale of how his first day back at HQ had been a complete mess.

Three pairs of eyes fix on his face, and Will only just stops himself from sinking a little lower into his chair. He scowls at Ethan. “Stop looking at me like that, Ethan, you already know anyway.”

Jane raises one of her perfect eyebrows. “What does our esteemed leader know about you then?”

Will sighs, thumb drawing aimless little pictures into the condensation on his bottle. “I’m not exactly who you think I am.”

“Yeah, that happens to me like every other day,” Benji comments. “I don’t know what I was expecting when I signed up for spy training.”

Ethan barely muffles his snort behind his hand and Benji grins at him. Will would probably enjoy the byplay more if he weren’t quite so nervous about the next words that are going to come out of his mouth.

“My name _is_ William Brandt, but the truth is that I’m dead. Have been ever since Croatia when I tried to save Julia Hunt from a Serbian hitsquad.”

He swallows back the _hired by Ethan_ that begs to be tacked on. Benji and Jane don’t know, and Will isn’t so shitty a person to reveal a secret that isn’t his to reveal. Even if it got him killed.

When he refocuses his attention, Benji is looking at him in that careful way he has that tends to implies that he thinks Will has a screw loose. “So, you’re what, a zombie?”

“Do I look like a zombie?” Will snorts dryly. “I certainly haven’t had any sudden urges to eat brains yet.”

Next to him Ethan sighs. “Just show them, Brandt.”

Ethan’s calm pushes down some of Will’s hesitation and doubt, just far down enough for him to take a deep breath and briefly manifest his wings. Very briefly, because he really doesn’t need half the population of Seattle to see them and start a riot, or some sort of alien rumours.

It’s almost satisfying to see Benji’s mouth fall open and Jane’s hands twitch towards her gun. To her credit, she doesn’t complete the motion but instead folds them in her lap.

“Riiiight,” Benji says, sounding like he’s half thinking this is all a big joke played at his expense, or perhaps a very intricate hallucination. “So you’re an angel?”

“He doesn’t like the term,” Ethan says dryly over Will’s groan.

“It’s a fairly new development too,” Will puts in. “I mostly feel just like plain old William Brandt to be honest.”

Benji raises sceptical eyebrows. “Just with big white wings.”

Will sighs. “Yes, that.”

“Why did this happen to you?” Jane finally speaks up from where she’d been sitting quietly, dark eyes watchful as Will bumbled through his explanation. “Why _you_?”

 _Hannaway_ , Will thinks, and takes care not to show any of the sympathy surging through his mind.

“I don’t know,” he replies, as frankly honest as he can be. “I have literally no fucking clue. No one told me anything or even gave me a manual. I could’ve done with a ’10 things to do when you’re dead and suddenly have wings’ booklet, but I just woke up. I’m sorry, Jane.”

She smiles at him, and there’s only the slightest tremor in her expression. “It’s fine. I don’t know what I expected.” Her gaze softens. “I don’t blame you for having this chance, Will. If it’s going to be anyone, you’re a good choice.”

She glances at Ethan, in a meaningful way that Will doesn’t want to think about too much, and her lips quirk once more at his flustered expression.

“You sticking with us then?” Benji asks with perfect timing that saves Will from potentially having to say anything to her silently playful accusation.

“Looks like it, Benji. If you’ll have me.”

Benji grins with enough amusement to cover some of the lingering shadows in his eyes. “Hey, we all saved each other’s asses out there, and the world while we were at it. We make a good team.”

“That we do,” Ethan says, and somehow that seems to decide the matter.

-

They’ve been on a collision course since Croatia and Will isn’t the least surprised when Ethan turns up outside his door in DC mere days after Seattle, casual in jeans and form-hugging t-shirt. He’s been waiting for the inevitable crash, after all.

The door closes behind Ethan’s back, and Will finds himself pinned with a patented Ethan stare of doom and intensity, and even that doesn’t prepare him for what happens next. He can barely blink before Ethan’s crowding him against the wall, tight muscles trapping him between Ethan’s body and the cool stone wall. With anyone else, the feel of simmering power in the body pressed against his would’ve felt threatening, incited some instinctive defence, but this is Ethan and Will –

Will surrenders.

Warm, slightly chapped lips find his, and all resistance crumbles. Will has made a career of never giving in, pushing stubbornness to a whole new level, but here, now, it’s never been easier.

When Ethan pulls back a long moment later, two wings have folded themselves across Ethan’s shoulders, holding him close. Will hadn’t even noticed them materialising, and here they are doing what his arms hadn’t dared to. An embarrassed flush rises on his cheeks and his wings twitch backwards to hover over his own shoulders.

“Julia?” Will asks, panting and flushed and wanting nothing more than to swallows the words and never let them see the light of day, but he _has_ to ask. In a way he died for Julia Hunt, and he hasn’t forgotten.

Ethan’s hands still on Will’s shoulders. “She would always have been in danger with me. I let her go.” He looks up at Will’s face and the worry lingering there. “It’s fine. She knows. She _understands_.”

That’s enough for him, and when Ethan leans in for a second time, Will meets him halfway, lips sliding together. It feels reassuringly human, even if his wings are quivering on his back, feathers rustling and twitching with unvoiced desire.

Ethan’s hand edges forward, his eyes dark with want and something deeper. “May I? he asks softly, and Will can only nod.

The first deliberate touch on his wings that is not his own lights the world on fire.

 


End file.
